How To Spot The Differences
by lilmisswritergal4eva82719511
Summary: "Inez and Idith Branko were absolutely and totally... indifferentiable. How could I figure out which one was Inez... or, uh, Idith, in this case? ... Because I knew them. No, scratch that; I knew -Inez-." How Dagbert knew which twin was which in book 7.


**A/N: So, this takes place during Shadow of Badlock, and it's about the scene where Idith did something, and Titania was going to get angry with her, but she said she was Inez and Dagbert's like "No, you're not. You're Idith." I don't have the book with me, and it's been probably a year and a half since I read it, so sorry if there's anything wrong.**

**Disclaimer: Don't own the Charlie Bone series. That's all Jenny Nimmo. :)**

* * *

Titania Tilpin was surprised, as was everyone else in the room. Not that I blamed them, of course. I mean, I would have been too. After all, Inez and Idith Branko were absolutely and totally… in-differentiable. How could _I_ figure out which one was Inez… or, uh, Idith, in this case?

But since it _was_ me, I could tell the difference as if one was a clown and one was a fish. No, they would not be a clownfish. We're not talking about Nemo, here. Though it _did_ sort of work in this situation. Nemo was lost and had to be found…

But the important thing is that I knew which twin was which, because I _knew_ them.

No, scratch that; I knew _Inez_.

Admittedly, it'd be hard for anyone to believe that, since no one ever saw her without her sister. But I would need all my fingers and toes to _begin_ to count the times I'd seen her alone.

The thing about the twins is that they weren't inseparable; but because so many people thought that they were, so no one ever bothered to think that they had separate personalities. I'd bet my left arm that they all thought that the Branko twins shared a brain… Heck, they probably thought the girls shared a body and the other one was some walking dummy. The thing that bugged me was that they all probably thought Inez was the dummy…

* * *

Let me backtrack.

It started at the beginning of the term, when I'd first met Inez. Not the first day, but the weekend before that. Since I was expected to be a tool for the Bloors (psh, yeah right), I'd been "invited" by the family to "take a tour around the school, get acquainted and comfortable with the place…"

I don't remember what they said after that. I tuned out and just wanted to get out of the room. When they dismissed me, I bolted out of the place as if it were on fire.

While looking for one of my classrooms (when I tuned out, I didn't hear them mention that Charlie Bone was going to escort me to my classes… though I still vaguely remember his name and something about "sticking like glue…"), I'd walked in the auditorium by mistake, and…

BAM!

I'd bumped into Inez Branko. Actually… it was more like "crashed" into her. But I didn't know at the time that this was Inez. At that moment, all I could focus were on her eyes.

If you're expecting a long passage about how I was so enchanted by her eyes and how I'd fallen in love with her right then and there, you will be sadly disappointed.

With her dark hair and pale face, her bright blue eyes were her most noticeable feature; especially with the way that they practically pierced through me. Let me tell you, Dagbert Endless does _not_ get scared easily (especially not by a girl… who I later noted happened to be really cute); but looking at her, I was bloody _terrified_.

"Watch where you're going, idiot," the (at the time) nameless girl practically sneered at me. I want to say that I had a witty retort that put her in her place, but I was so freaked out by her eyes that all I let out was a squeak that meant 'yes.' It was a very manly squeak, mind you.

She just rolled her eyes and walked past me. When she was turned around, I stuck my tongue out at her back and made a bunch of other stupid faces. But now that her eyes were out of my sightline, I could concentrate on other parts of her.

That's when I noticed her hair went just the _slightest_ bit below her shoulders.

* * *

A couple of hours later, I saw her giggling at some joke made by this scrawny kid she was talking to. Okay, yeah, I admit it. When I first saw Joshua Tilpin, I thought he was scrawny. I also thought he was a midget. What a first impression of a guy who ends up being your best friend, right? Meh, Josh told me he thought I was a brainless jerk, so it was kind of even.

But anyway, I saw them talking and I decided that I would apologize. It was a good idea to have all the people on both sides to be on my side, I figured. So I was there, about two or three metres away, when "the girl" turned away from me. I noticed her hair didn't swing around; it just stayed at her shoulders. _Right_ at her _shoulders_… her hair wasn't any shorter. Nor was it any longer.

I knew right then that it wasn't the girl I'd bumped into earlier. So I turned around and began to walk away…

Until I walked into _her_ again.

"Ugh, do you have some problem that prohibits you from walking properly or something?" She seethed.

"No, you just have really bad timing," I snapped back at her, surprising the both of us. She got out of it faster than I did.

"Right, it's _my_ fault. You know, because I'm guessing you're Mr. Perfect who can't do anything wrong," Nameless-girl replied.

I had no retort, but she was not going to win with _that_. I opened my mouth to say _something_, but my voice didn't come out of it.

"Hey! Who's your friend?" We both turned to see both Scrawny and Girl-who-looked-like-nameless-girl right behind me.

"He's not my friend," Nameless-girl said.

"Wow, and I thought we were really hitting it off there," I muttered sarcastically.

"Of course, because someone not liking you is such a hit to your huge ego," She mumbled back. Rolling her eyes, she said "Idith, we need to go. We have a presentation to work on."

Scrawny looked confused and looked at Girl-who-looked-like-nameless-girl… or Idith, I guess. "Wait, Idith? I thought you were Inez?"

Idith laughed, and I noticed her eyes weren't as bright as her look-alike. "Wow, Josh. We may be twins, but we don't look _that_ alike."

Nameless-girl (or Inez, I guessed) just looked kind of angry, grabbed her sister's elbow (it made sense now, why they looked alike), and practically yanked her away.

Scrawny just looked at me and said, "Huh, so you must be the new kid Manfred's been talking about. I'm Joshua; Joshua Tilpin."

I nodded and said, "Dagbert Endless."

* * *

The third time I met Inez Branko was in the ruin after lights out. I'd needed to clear my head, and the dorm room was way too stuffy. Trying to destroy practically every tie a person had with his friends took a lot out of a guy.

I saw her immediately, and even though I didn't know which one of the twins it was (it was too dark to check her hair length), I didn't want to take any chances. I was about to turn around and run, but she said, "I know you're there, Endless."

Uh-oh; busted. I turned around, guiltily, and was surprised to see she was still sitting with her back to me, looking up at the moon. I opened my mouth to ask her how the heck she knew I was there, but once again, she beat me to the punch.

"You're not exactly subtle, y'know. Besides, you're the only person who would've turned around without doing anything. Manfred and the other adults would yell at me for being out so late; Joshua would tease me about it; and Idith would've asked me why I was here."

After her mentioning her sister, I knew it was Inez. I came up beside her and asked if I could sit down. She nodded, still looking at the moon.

We sat there for a while in silence. Somewhere in that silence, the awkwardness vanished and we just looked at the moon in this weird, unexplainable fascination.

But Inez wasn't one for silences, and she could only stay quiet for so long.

"So why are you here?" She asked, finally looking at me. Her black bangs fell slightly into her eyes and I thought for the shortest of seconds that she was actually really cute.

But I had that thought for barely a second.

I shrugged in response to her question and said, "Bloor's is just a crazy place. Guess I didn't totally prepare myself for what goes on in this place." It was true. That stuff with Charlie Bone, the Red King, and that kid Manfred mentioned once (Asa, I think his name was…) kind of made my head spin. Josh was pretty cool, though, so I spent most of my time away from Charlie with him.

She let out a short laugh and responded, "_No one_ can prepare themselves for what goes here. Otherwise, they'd have some serious mental problems."

I smiled. So she _was_ capable of being nice.

"So what's your excuse for being out so late?" I asked.

Inez hesitated before saying, "… Stuff."

"Oh, c'mon; you've _got_ to give me better than _that_."

She sighed, and said, "Do you have any siblings?" I shook my head. "You're lucky," she said wistfully.

Oh; sister drama. Not really my department… but right now, I was willing to try. "Want to talk about it?" I asked.

Inez looked hesitant at the idea, but decided she didn't really have anything to lose. "Idith can be classified as clinically insane. She has anger and jealousy issues, and she's a very morbid. And she's pure evil. Like, worse-than-Manfred evil. And she's always mentioning that she's seen our sister."

"What's so odd about her seeing your sister?" I asked.

"Our sister, Ingrid, died exactly a year and a day before we were born, according to my mom."

Oh… Well, I could see the problem there.

"Anyway, Idith brought her up again, and I told her she was crazy. She got upset, we had our usual fight, and once again, I'm here wondering why I said something stupid, even though I know deep down that it's not my fault."

"Well, why don't you leave?" It was a stupid thing to say, but it's the first idea that came to mind. I made a mental note to never give advice to anyone ever again, for fear they'd use it and then try to kill me when it backfired. I found out later that that plan was useless.

"I _can't_. Idith may be the older twin, but I'm the one who looks out for her. I have to make sure she stays somewhere where she's safe, and happy, and that's here," Inez said. She let out a sigh, and mumbled, "I wish it wasn't."

"I'm not the only one who hates it here?" I inquired gently.

"I'd be okay with everything else. I mean, I can handle the bad stuff we do and her insanity; heck, I can take it that we're always together and no one can tell us apart, because that's me looking out for her. It's just… I wish my feelings and everything didn't have to be put backseat to hers. I mean, yeah, I was over Joshua before she told me; but it still bugs me to see them together…" Inez trailed off, realizing she said something she wasn't supposed to. She liked Joshua? That explained why she was so snappy when I first saw the three of them together.

"Is Joshua like, the only thing that keeps her sane or something?" I asked. She nodded. "She likes him, a lot. And I never told her, so I can't be angry with her for it. But I see the two of them laughing and I think 'that's exactly how we would look, wouldn't we?' In the end, I'm the only to blame for being angry with her." She let out a bitter chuckle, and I ran out of things to say.

We sat there a few minutes again in quiet before I decided to break our silence this time. But with what…?

"Do you like Maroon 5?" I blurted. Inez looked at me, surprised; but she answered anyway.

"Yeah, but I prefer The Fray."

"Then you _have_ to have heard Anna Nalick."

"Oh gosh, yes! I love her lyrics."

"You know who else has good lyrics?"

"Vanessa Carlton, for sure."

And we bantered like this (about music, books, movies, etc.) for what felt like hours, until we realized we had to go inside soon before we fell asleep out on the grass.

Inez smiled at me as we walked back to the building, and said, "Sorry for being so cranky when I first met you. Bad day, y'know?"

"I've had more than my fair share," I told her, smirking. I softened my expression and said, "When I bumped into you that second time, I was actually on my way to apologize to you."

We got to the door, parted ways, and kind of silently agreed not to do this ever again.

Three days later, we were in the same spot, doing the same thing. And the same thing, sometime the next week. And soon enough, we started having our meetings everyday.

* * *

That's when I really learned about Inez Branko. Her hair was a bit longer than Idith's and her eyes were brighter, too. She had a birthmark on her neck that looked like a beauty mark and always kept a hair-tie on her wrist, because she liked tying her hair back more than she did keeping it open. Whenever she was uncomfortable, she would twist her wrists in her hands and tried not to look anyone in the eye. Or when she got really excited, she made a lot of gestures and there were times where she actually jumped up and down.

And I knew about her love of acting, and how she wanted to be Broadway star in America one day. She sang really well, but she was also kind of shy about her voice. She _did_ like Josh when she first came here, but she got over him, and I knew she wasn't lying when she said that (maybe I just wanted to believe that because the feeling in my stomach whenever she mentioned her former crush on him would go away if I did). She didn't like being endowed, but she found her endowment very useful. She hated English, because of Mr. Carp; but she loved reading, and actually wrote poems every once in a while. She had seasonal allergies and I was warned to stay clear of her whenever the seasons changed if I didn't want to be 'contaminated' (her words, not mine).

I learned almost everything about Inez Branko in our meetings, and she did the same thing with me.

And yeah, somewhere in between there, I fell for her.

But that wasn't important. What was important was that Inez and I found someone who _understood_ us, which was rare in both of our lives.

And how did we know just how well we understood each other?

One day, in the King's Room, I passed her a note across the table when no one was looking and wrote _'Hey, Inez. Can I borrow a pen?'_

She passed it telekinetically, the most shocked look on her face. Then she broke out into a grin, and went back to work. She almost started humming some show tune near the end of homework period.

* * *

That's how I spotted the difference between the Branko sisters. I watched the conversation they had with their eyes (noting just how much brighter Inez's were), where Idith begged for Inez to back her up and Inez relented. I watched Inez let her sister pretend to be her. And before I knew it, I'd blurted "No, you're not. You're Idith."

Inez's face was blank, but her eyes told me everything. She looked _relieved_ that I'd noticed, as well as thankful. And honestly? So was I.

I saw Inez that night, for our usual meeting. She wasn't sitting today. She was standing, obviously waiting for me. The second she saw me, she brightened and gave me a hug. Needless to say, I hugged her back.

"Thanks," she said, and that's all we said for the entire night. We just sat and watched the moon for the rest of our time. That was the first time we didn't need words. And when we were leaving, she kissed my cheek and walked without waiting for me.

I just stood there with the goofiest grin on my face.

Because honestly? Getting to know Inez Branko was probably the greatest thing I'd ever done.

* * *

**A/N: Yaaaaaaaaaay for Dagbert! I haven't focused too much on the bad endowed, and I always thought (for some weird reason) that out of Dagbert, Josh, Dorcas, Inez, and Idith, Idith was the only truly bad one. I also think she's crazy, so… yeah. Please don't question my odd logic. Anyway, I've wanted to write this since like… late November/early December, so I'm happy I finally did this week. Also, I had a near panic attack and thought that the file didn't save properly and I had to re-write the whole thing. But luckily, it was fine. Anyway, hoped you enjoyed! :)**

**Word Count: 2,765**

**Time Posted: 11:30 – 11:45 PM**

**- May :)**


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